Firebrand's Lament
by Jeanne M
Summary: Jean speaks out about her treatment at the hands of her teammates following Scott's death.


Usual: Characters? NOT MINE. No money is being made. I am sick of seeing people assume that since Scott is 'dead' that Jean and Logan would pair off, so I wrote this. It's time to give them some credit.

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Firebrand's Lament

Jeanne M.  
  


_And it's not always meant to be, and it's not always up to me.  
Lisa Loeb "Wishing Heart"  
_  
  
  


I know what you're thinking. How can I not? All mutant powers aside, I see the glances, I hear the whispers. I am acutely aware of every notion and thought that pass behind the veiled eyes of my house mates. I know what they think, and it makes me see red. Hm. Red. Redd. I made a joke.

The person I love more than anything else is gone. Forever. I know this. My soulmate, my other half is dead to me. Where once there was a shimmering silver thread connecting our hearts, souls, and minds, there is now only silence. Broken, bleeding, razor-sharp silence. That one moment is eternally ingrained into my brain, and I see it every time I close my eyes. There is no rest, there is no respite, and still I hear their quiet words.

My love is dead, and they all expect me to go running into the arms of another man for comfort.

It's not inconceivable, I suppose. Admittedly, there has been an attraction between us from that first day, but my soul had not been dead a week when the bets began. How long until I succumb to my anguish and sleep with my husband's rival? That's the question burning on their lips. Only his son understands. My lover's son, who should also have been mine. The child of my clone, the person with perhaps the most reason to allow the unsaid accusations burn in his eyes, understands and does not judge. Nathan has been in my place, felt half of a psi-link die violently, and in his eyes is simply understanding. He had found love again, in the deadly verbal sparring match with his lover and equal, Domino. Now the woman is missing, and he too feels the sting of love's loss. Domino..... just the smallest mention of her name, the slightest hint of her brings a flash of.... pain? guilt? Into his eyes. 

I returned from the dead for Scott. 

Together, we have traversed time and space. Never, ever, have I betrayed him. Even when he was flirting with Betsy, I still loved him and had faith. I have faced down death and destruction, when the world was falling apart around us, confident that together we could win through. Loss of friends, family, powers, nothing has deterred us. We have met children from alternate futures, raised his son in a time far off, weathered the crisis of the moment since we were sixteen, and still everyone thinks I am just going to fall into Logan's waiting arms. It makes me sick. He's simply there, a quiet support for his team, fighting the good fight. What has happened pains him to end. At night, sometimes I catch slips of thought that leak past his shields. Pain, hurt, tiredness, an old soldier who wishes for the war to end. In the name of all whom have fallen, he fights on, the noble samurai. 

But I don't love him, not like I do Scott.

My feelings for Logan are complex, to say the least. I am attracted to him, that I will not deny. I always have been, and I suppose I always shall be. He's not out to seduce me, despite popular opinion around here. Logan is too honorable to do that. My love for Logan is an understanding, a respect, and attraction all rolled into one. Yes, that's right, I said love. I love all of my friends, in my own way. It's different from my feelings for my husband, less intense. Less soul-deep and encompassing. But it is love, in it's own form. 

I still love Scott. Logan still loves Mariko. Despite our mutual attraction, nothing is going to happen. There is too much respect, both for each other, and our dead loves. A simple understanding has evolved after all these years, an acknowledgment of might-have-been. Bishop told me once that in another reality Logan and I were lovers. For awhile, it was hard to reconcile that knowledge with the life I have here. But I did. But that woman wasn't me, and that man wasn't him. History had moved differently, and we were different people.

Scott never did understand that. In this world, in this life, all that Logan and I will ever be is what we are now. We're both more than people give us credit for at times. But we fight and bleed and hurt like everyone else. But the whispers persist. So soft, so guileless, and so damn annoying. I know that it hurts him too, that people think he's just going to drag me off into the woods and ravish me on my husband's grave. 

But he won't. Because he loves me.

And because I love him too.

Just not in the way I loved Scott, and that's okay. You can't expect to have psi-links and soulbonds with everyone you know. And I wouldn't want to love Logan that way. We both enjoy the understanding that we have, there's no reason to try and make it something it's not. So for now we'll ignore the whispers, the quick glances, and carry on. I won't let my friends know how much their contemplations hurt me, because I know my role in the X-Men. After so many years, how can I not?

I am Jean Grey-Summers, the beautiful and charming woman who was first among Xavier's students. I am the mother/sister/friend that none of them ever had. I am the other half of a soul, the light to Scott Summer's eternal solemness. I am the damned Dream, and will rise from the dead radiating power to defend it. I am a sublime Phoenix, forever burning gloriously in a human shell. I keep my team together, despite my own personal traumas and turmoil. This is my duty. That is my part. I shall play it to the end. 


End file.
